August 14, 2020

Tsoy's Last Concert


Tsoy's Last Concert
Tsoi remains popular in Russia today. Image by Tim Penn via Wikimedia Commons

When considering the history of contemporary Russian music, one rock icon repeatedly pops out: Viktor Tsoy. Tsoy’s legacy, along with the group he cofounded, Kino, has long been a favorite of Russian music lovers. Now, fans of the group can enjoy a recording of their last concert before Tsoi’s tragic death in an automobile accident in 1990.

On August 15, the thirtieth anniversary of Tsoi’s death, Pervy Kanal will broadcast a recording of Kino’s last concert at the Luzhniki Stadium. This recording was previously believed to be lost, but has recently been rediscovered. The concert, not originally well-known among the broader public, took place on June 24, 1990, less than two months before Tsoi’s untimely death.

Yuri Aksyuta, the chief music and entertainment producer for Pervyi Kanal, reported that they are working on restoring the video in time for its broadcast: “Unfortunately, it [the recording] is not of the best quality, so now we are engaged in the restoration of the concert and by August 15 we will try to have time to restore it, as much as possible in such a short time.”

Tags: rock music

You Might Also Like

Victor Tsoy - Interview and Lyrics
  • May 01, 2012

Victor Tsoy - Interview and Lyrics

This issue's Uchites insert offers a glossed interview with rock legend Victor Tsoy, plus a gloss of the lyrics from one of his most famous songs.
Victor Tsoy
  • May 01, 2012

Victor Tsoy

No rock musician has had such a profound, lasting effect on Russian culture as Victor Tsoy.
Tsoy Lives!
  • April 25, 2012

Tsoy Lives!

There is not a single other figure in Russian rock – living or dead – who has attained the same sort of cult status as Victor Tsoy, who would have been 50 on June 21. And while Tsoy’s biography is well-known, it hardly explains how it is that the person and legacy of Victor Tsoy continues to this day to play such an important role in Russian culture - even in Russian mass culture.
Like this post? Get a weekly email digest + member-only deals

Some of Our Books

Turgenev Bilingual

Turgenev Bilingual

A sampling of Ivan Turgenev's masterful short stories, plays, novellas and novels. Bilingual, with English and accented Russian texts running side by side on adjoining pages.
Davai! The Russians and Their Vodka

Davai! The Russians and Their Vodka

In this comprehensive, quixotic and addictive book, Edwin Trommelen explores all facets of the Russian obsession with vodka. Peering chiefly through the lenses of history and literature, Trommelen offers up an appropriately complex, rich and bittersweet portrait, based on great respect for Russian culture.
Moscow and Muscovites

Moscow and Muscovites

Vladimir Gilyarovsky's classic portrait of the Russian capital is one of Russians’ most beloved books. Yet it has never before been translated into English. Until now! It is a spectactular verbal pastiche: conversation, from gutter gibberish to the drawing room; oratory, from illiterates to aristocrats; prose, from boilerplate to Tolstoy; poetry, from earthy humor to Pushkin. 
Fish: A History of One Migration

Fish: A History of One Migration

This mesmerizing novel from one of Russia’s most important modern authors traces the life journey of a selfless Russian everywoman. In the wake of the Soviet breakup, inexorable forces drag Vera across the breadth of the Russian empire. Facing a relentless onslaught of human and social trials, she swims against the current of life, countering adversity and pain with compassion and hope, in many ways personifying Mother Russia’s torment and resilience amid the Soviet disintegration.
The Moscow Eccentric

The Moscow Eccentric

Advance reviewers are calling this new translation "a coup" and "a remarkable achievement." This rediscovered gem of a novel by one of Russia's finest writers explores some of the thorniest issues of the early twentieth century.
Faith & Humor: Notes from Muscovy

Faith & Humor: Notes from Muscovy

A book that dares to explore the humanity of priests and pilgrims, saints and sinners, Faith & Humor has been both a runaway bestseller in Russia and the focus of heated controversy – as often happens when a thoughtful writer takes on sacred cows. The stories, aphorisms, anecdotes, dialogues and adventures in this volume comprise an encyclopedia of modern Russian Orthodoxy, and thereby of Russian life.
White Magic

White Magic

The thirteen tales in this volume – all written by Russian émigrés, writers who fled their native country in the early twentieth century – contain a fair dose of magic and mysticism, of terror and the supernatural. There are Petersburg revenants, grief-stricken avengers, Lithuanian vampires, flying skeletons, murders and duels, and even a ghostly Edgar Allen Poe.
Jews in Service to the Tsar

Jews in Service to the Tsar

Benjamin Disraeli advised, “Read no history: nothing but biography, for that is life without theory.” With Jews in Service to the Tsar, Lev Berdnikov offers us 28 biographies spanning five centuries of Russian Jewish history, and each portrait opens a new window onto the history of Eastern Europe’s Jews, illuminating dark corners and challenging widely-held conceptions about the role of Jews in Russian history.
How Russia Got That Way

How Russia Got That Way

A fast-paced crash course in Russian history, from Norsemen to Navalny, that explores the ways the Kremlin uses history to achieve its ends.

About Us

Russian Life is a publication of a 30-year-young, award-winning publishing house that creates a bimonthly magazine, books, maps, and other products for Russophiles the world over.

Latest Posts

Our Contacts

Russian Life
73 Main Street, Suite 402
Montpelier VT 05602

802-223-4955